When reading the Stanford Prison Experiment the thing that stuck out to me the most was a comment made about a riot at Attica Prison in New York. This riot, which occurred after the experiment was terminated, revolved around the prisoners wanting to be treated like human beings. They had had their humanity stripped from them. Despite having learned about the Stanford Prison Experiment previously and knowing people that have been incarcerated, each time I think of human rights being taken from prisoners, I think of the right to vote being stripped from them. I see the right to vote as a basic right for citizens of the United States. Therefore, in stripping that right from prisoners, the government is stripping them of their personhood. However, the desire to be treated as human beings goes deeper than that. The comment made about the Attica Prison riot made the dehumanization of the prisoners clearer for me. The experiment wasn’t just an experiment and prisons are not locations for rehabilitation. They are, as currently ran, locations that questions the extent to which humanity is guaranteed which, I believe, and think others would agree with me, is not an ethically sound cause.

When you tie in the Stanford Prison Experiment into the reading from Goethals and Allison, you get into the tricky tie between the prison system and stereotypes. As Goethals and Allison discussed, mystery leads to people trying to complete schemas for people in their heads. This leads to people like Warren Harding becoming president because he “looks the part.” However, it also leads to people being placed into schemas for criminals because they also “look the part.” This leads to people belonging to minority groups being incarcerated at higher rates. This becomes especially dangerous when considering how the prison system strips people of their humanity. People of these minority groups that happen to fill these schemas are having their humanity stripped from them no matter their actual level of guilt.